German Unification Is Outrunning the Diplomats

By DAVID BINDER, Special to The New York Times

Published: May 1, 1990

EAST BERLIN, April 30—
Representatives of the four victorious powers of World War II convened in a castle here today with East and West German Government specialists to discuss an agenda leading to a unified German state.

But even as the experts began their discussions, the German Democratic Republic created by the Communists is melting away piece by piece, hour by hour as West German companies and products move into the East German market and Bonn officials take the upper hand here.

Diplomats are already making jokes about the ''four plus two'' formula that brought specialists of the Soviet Union, United States, Britain, France and the two German Governments to the round glass-topped table in East Berlin's Niederschonhausen Castle.

Unification Arithmetic

''Four plus two. That equals five,'' says one current aphorism making the point that East Germany simply does not count any more as an international player.

The experts are supposed to prepare talking points for the full scale four-plus-two meetings of their Foreign Ministers beginning Saturday in Bonn.

But the changes taking place in the lives of East Germans seem to be outpacing the deliberations in the castle. Already hundreds of West German entrepreneurs have set up businesses in East Berlin and other East German areas. An East German car owner was astounded the other day to find the People's Own Chemicals Factory tire store that he was accustomed to patronize was now labeled Kroning, a West German concern. Inside were products from the British company Dunlop and the French giant Michelin.

Down the street a camera shop has announced that its customers can now have one-day service for developing and printing their films instead of the of two to three weeks that had been customary. The proprietor has begun sending film to a West Berlin firm for processing.

Such services, of course, cost more than the East German ones they are replacing and with East German wages scaled at roughly one-third those of West Germany, the new prices concern many people here.

More worrisome for the bulk of the East Germans is that as soon as a treaty between East Berlin and Bonn initiating a currency union goes into effect on July 1, rents, public transport prices and other items kept low by heavy subsidies all the years of Socialism will go sky-high.

''I've already started planning to move to a smaller apartment,'' said Hans Gerd Protsch, a Foreign Ministry official who has a four-room flat facing Karl-Marx-Allee.

Property Claims

Other East German householders have become anxious that many of the more than three million people who fled this country since it was founded in 1949 will now demand their properties back.

Recently West Germany's Central Association of House, Apartment and Property Owners calculated that as many as 500,000 citizens will raise such claims.

In addition claims are being made for properties confiscated by the Communist authorities after they took power. One such claim has been filed by a citizen of Switzerland who owned the land near Alexanderplatz where a huge television tower now stands. ''I don't want a television tower,'' the former Berliner told an interviewer.

The rapid approach of German unity on the practical level brought about by the March 18 Parliamentary vote in favor of East Germany's Christian Democratic Union Party has created elements of chaos here. The uncertainties have also prompted another increase in migration of East Germans to West Germany with 4,000 making the journey last week, a figure that is almost twice the low point that was recorded after the March elections.

Western Products

On the one hand, the stores filling up with West German goods have on the one hand, pleased shoppers, but on the other, led retailers to refuse to order from East German wholesalers on the premise that the goods were unsalable. A walk past the stores of Friedrichstrasse makes the point: French perfumes, Italian sunglasses and American cigarettes are on display, crowding out East German products.

Supermarkets carry West German eggs, beer and bread at three times the price but hardly three times the quality of East German eggs, beer or bread -yet East Germans are paying the premium for the Western products.

Because of these buying patterns, a surplus of three million eggs has accumulated in East Germany.

Over the weekend, hundreds of East German farmers mounted demonstrations with tractor convoys to protest the invasion of West German farm products, which have forced them to suspend deliveries of their own goods and put off slaughtering of animals for meat.

Prospect of Unemployment

A further concern of the East Germans is the prospect of mass unemployment as large numbers of state enterprises close down and others trim their work forces. Already 10,000 are officially registered as jobless in East Berlin and probably another 10,000 who have no work but have not declared themselves. The unemployed receive 70 percent of their wages.

Among the unemployed are many senior figures of East Germany's former Communist Party, including Egon Krenz, who was briefly First Secretary last Autumn and Gunter Schabowski, the Politburo member who declared the opening of the Berlin Wall on television on Nov. 9.

Mr. Schabowski, who is in his early 50's, told a party comrade last week that he had applied to the City Waterworks for a job as inspector of fountains. He explained that East Berlin had over 1,000 fountains and that water purity was often a problem. He was refused the post because of his membership in the Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor of the Communist Party.